This blog is totally independent, unpaid and has only three major objectives.
The first is to inform readers of news and happenings in the e-Health domain, both here in Australia and world-wide.
The second is to provide commentary on e-Health in Australia and to foster improvement where I can.
The third is to encourage discussion of the matters raised in the blog so hopefully readers can get a balanced view of what is really happening and what successes are being achieved.

Monday, May 11, 2015

A Credible Plan And Business Case for the PCEHR Reboot?

I just wondered if anyone knew if such documents existed and better still what they say?

I am struggling to even begin to imagine what could be additionally usefully done for $120M p. a. given the costs we are already aware of involved in just keeping the system ticking over (many millions p.a. - at least 30M p.a. I would guess). Remember, in total, Version 1 cost many, many hundreds of billions.

As to the $140 million available in 2014-15, in answer to Senator Di Natale's question "What has this been spent on?"

Ms Powell: "Of the $140m, $103.9m is set aside for, primarily, the Health department, but some goes to the Department of Human Services and some goes to Veterans Affairs to operate the PCEHR.

"I will give you these splits: $82m goes to Health; $21.8m goes to Human Services, $0.1m goes to Veterans Affairs; $2.3m goes to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner; $34.4m goes to NEHTA as part of our COAG contributions to pay for the eHealth foundation work that is done by NEHTA, and that adds up to $140m.

So none of this money trickled down on site into - direct training and support of, or incentives to - healthcare providers to use the PCEHR or other parts of the government provided eHealth Infrastructure (e.g. digital certificates and Identifiers)?

Without that I fail to see how it in its current version, or a 'better' replacement would succeed anyway. It will be doomed as a white elephant, retarding progress in eHealth, not advancing it with the lack of confidence and application.

And why is only Senator Di Natale remaining asking the tough questions?